Jess Banks schools you.

Last week, I started a new feature on the blog called Friday Night Lists, with the first of three lists of people I’d love to sit down with, around a dinner table, and talk the night away. Last week, I gave my picks from the pool of living participants. This week, I’d like to introduce you to my guest list drawn from all of history. Like last week, I’ll give a brief blurb about why I’ve picked each person, and I’ll provide a link, in case you’d like to learn more about the ones I’m introducing you to/reminding you of.

As with all my lists, I’ll inevitably forget someone–much footstomping and cursing will follow. So please share your picks, to help remind me in case my sons ever do manage to build a TARDIS out of a refrigerator box.

MY HISTORICAL GUESTS

• Christine de Pizan: medieval author; philosopher. Her clever allegory City of Women books make the case for a feminist perspective on Christianity, without proposing that women’s only place in the world was as an empty vessel for children or the Holy Spirit.
• Constance de Markievicz: politician; rebel; founder of the Fianna Eireann. She dressed like a man, sat at the table with the intellectuals who planned the 1916 Easter Rebellion, and trained the generation of boys and girls who would see through the dream of an Irish Free State.
• Edward R. Murrow: journalist. Through the new medium of radio, Murrow brought the early days of World War II into American homes, fearlessly reporting from London throughout the Blitz, and from many other hazardous locations. As if that weren’t brave enough, he stood up to the McCarthy witch hunts in the name of free speech and accurate reporting.
• Franklin Delano & Eleanor Roosevelt: four-term president of the United States; First Lady & activist. He engineered the New Deal and the American social safety net, then gave the nation a moral compass to get through World War II. She was a smart, welcoming First Lady, and an inspiring advocate for peace when she founded the United Nations. They weren’t perfect, but my admiration is boundless.
• Hatshepsut: king of Ancient Egypt. She stands out as a fearless female leader in the midst of millenia of patriarchal influence. She wasn’t satisfied with the qualified, subordinate title of “queen;” she dressed and ruled like the great kings of the Nile.
• Jim Henson: puppeteer; director; artist. Who could possibly envision everything from Sesame Street to the Skeksis, and a million sights in between? His respect for children, smart and wacky sense of humor, and gift for finding the humanity in every sock and stick was half of what defined my idea of imagination as a child.
• John Lennon: singer/songwriter; artist; activist. Half of the greatest songwriting team of all time, he lived a second act that spread the word of love and peace, before ending far too soon.
• Katharine Hepburn: actress; author. She was brainy, cool, elegant, funny, and smart-mouthed. I watched everything of hers I could find as a kid, much of it on the big screen, from “Kitty Foyle” to “The Philadelphia Story” to “The African Queen.” She brought immeasurable class and fearless grit to every aspect of her life. I even wear my long hair in a bun, in hopes that someday, it’ll just stay like that, just like hers.
• Margaret Sanger: nurse; midwife; sex educator; founder of Planned Parenthood. She knew that a woman’s power over her reproduction was even more important for her ultimate health, wealth, and upward mobility than suffrage. As you wonder how birth control is even a topic for debate in 2012, spare a moment for dear Margaret and the sheer will and courage it took to fight that fight in public 100 years ago.
• Oscar Wilde: author. He skips from whimsy to horror to cutting satire so fast, it gives a reader or theatergoer whiplash. He was persecuted as a political pawn for whom he loved, and he bore the humiliation and suffering with honesty and dignity, when his opponents had none.
• Richard Holbrooke: diplomat. It pains me that he’s not on the list of Living Guests. His knowledge of such difficult regions of the world is sorely needed, as is his skillful, sensitive hand at negotiations which ended the Bosnian conflict in peace.
• Samuel Clemens: author. Witty, insightful, playful, and profound, Mark Twain remains my favorite author of all time, bar none. Every time I read his work, there’s a new revelation.
• Theodor Seuss Geisel: author/illustrator. Dr. Seuss’ books shaped my childhood as much as did Jim Henson, with their psychedelic, whimsical characters and cleverly wrought language. We hardly noticed the messages of basic human rights, environmentalism, and peace, but they left their mark.
• Thomas Jefferson: author, inventor, architect, third president of the United States. He had a completely unique view of the world, and it gave us a future we’re still unfolding. I want to compliment him on his beautiful home and garden, then grill him on his notions of “inalienable rights.”